Read on Twitter
And at this point, Trump’s base is so personally invested in both Trump, and their support of him, that risking their lives is preferable to admitting they were conned or to admitting that they made a mistake: 11/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1128276265629130752
Unsurprisingly, the cult members’ behavior mirrors the behavior of the cult leader’s own personal, self-sabotaging behavior….12/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1244331588365832192
Another aspect that stands out about the Trump rallygoer’s comments is the effect that confirmation bias has on political tribalism. Specifically, a study (Lord et al, 1979) where people were exposed to evidence that both support & contradicted two opposing sides of an issue. 13/
But rather than have their opinions moderated into a middle-ground position, the unpredicted effect of being exposed to convincing scientific evidence for both sides of the issue resulted in people holding a more polarized/extreme position than before they heard the evidence. 14/
Some potential theories that may explain the results of this study…15/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1213579830345646080
What is especially relevant with the Covid situation, as evidenced by the Trump rallygoer’s comments, is the toxic media culture that not only creates the presentation of false “scientific” equivalencies on an issue….22/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1170729949801537537
…..but more importantly, that the toxic media and political culture's “Fire Hose of Lies”, disinformation campaign poisons the minds of consumers/constituents because, to quote the Trump rallygoer, “you don’t know what the facts are”. 25/ https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1225030897184886786
A few other relevant tweets/threads: https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1225030209608372229
A relevant thread: https://twitter.com/Nick_Carmody/status/1261268739606994944
